By our comfortable car we leave the buzzing city of Quito in northern direction and cross the two dry valleys of Río Guayllabamba and Río Pisque with their sparce vegetation. After around an hour we stop at a nice view point.

Did you know that the Andes are the longest folded mountain range of the world? I will show you an impressive folding, but also sea sediments of lime which show us, that before the Andes were folded up, this area was covered by an ocean.

We will be astonished by the excellent view of almost all the Pichincha Province with several glacier capped mountains in the distance and the deep valley of Río Pisque close by.

We continue by car and will see a lot of green houses for flower production and shops on both sides of the road. Ecuador is famous for its wonderful flowers! But we not only sell these flowers in my country. Most of them go abroad and you can buy them literally in all over the world!

Later farm land and pastures dominate the landscape and we pass the mighty Cayambe (5790m), the highest point of the world at the equator line.

We cross Zuleta and on a bumpy cobblestone road we go up to the starting point of our trek at 3250m.

Start walking we cross some pine plantations and later the open grassland of Páramo, a native vegetation that you can find only in South America.

Deep below we admire farm land, crops and pastures in very different green, yellow and dark brown colors, similar to a carpet of patch work. Farm houses and hamlets are widely distributed into the landscape. Wild flowers grace the shores of the moderate steep trail.

If we rise up the view we realize that Cubilche is settled just in the middle of two majestic high mountains, extincted volcanoes as well: Cayambe (5790m) with its glaciated round summit and Imbabura (4640m). This summit shows the typical flat border of a crater.

Cubilche itself had different times of volcanic activity, the last one was some 31thousand years ago.

This area is so interesting and unique that the UNESCO recognized it even as Geo-Park!

As closer we come to the highest point of Cubilches crater, as more we can appreciate, that surprisingly 4 small lakes decorate in unique way its summit area. They fill the different craters. Fantastic!

"Our" mountain is situated in the province of Imbabura. In Ecuador we call it the province of the big lakes, because there are some quiet huge bodies of water adorning its mountainous area.

With some luck we can spot two of these big lakes: Lago de San Pablo and Laguna de Yahuarcocha close to the province capital Ibarra, visible as well.

But sometimes the clouds are quicker and cover partly or totally the surroundings.

After a rest at one of the crater lakes we walk back to the car and return to the village of Zuleta, famous for embroideries.

Many of the local women in Zuleta and surroundings earn their money by embroidering all kind of white textiles. You may want to visit some of the shops, mostly inside of an adopted room of the traditional house, there they live with all their family.

In this somehow hidden area of Ecuador the native indigenous population still maintains their traditions and part of this is their clothing: We will see many women wearing their adorable colorful skirts and embroidered blouses.

With some luck we may be part of a traditional festivity or of a procession.

The valley of Zuleta is famous for its cheese as well and hosts a Condor breading centre. Some big land owners open their old historic haciendas to tourists for lodging and activities like horse back riding. So you can return in other occasion to enjoy very different adventures in this hidden corner of Ecuador!

We may have lunch in Zuleta.

After lunch we visit the town of Cayambe at the bottom of the mighty volcano with the same name.

Cayambe and surroundings are a centre of milk production. Different kinds of Yogurt, chocolate, milk powder and cheese are produced there.

Unique is its Queso de Hoja (literally Leaf Cheese). Taste it together with the Bizcocho cake, unique as well for Cayambe! Bizcochos are produced in many, many bakeries of the town, some of them are using still ovens heated by wood.

The highlands of Ecuador are full of traditions!

Not far from Cayambe we will cross the equator line.

You may choose between two different monuments: One, called Quitsato with entrance fee and a guided explication about history and sundial, the other without fee, there you may take pictures with the globe and the line directly at the shore of the Pan-American highway.

At the Pan-American highway we continue and may stop at another nice viewpoint.

We appreciate the deep valley of Río Pisque, the many greenhouses for flower production and if the clouds allows the glacier capped Cayambe, the third highest mountain of Ecuador, as well as other volcanoes.

On the road again we cross the Guayllabamba valley.

After an exciting day with a lot of activities and encounters with traditions of all kind we return to Quito and say goodbye.